Cormac Murphy O'Connor, the Roman Catholic Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, did not have a good year in 2002 and the outlook does not look much brighter.

There are powerful people saying he should resign and too often when facing the media, he has looked like a rabbit dazzled by car headlights.

The cause of all this strife is a scandal that started long ago when the Archbishop had a more modest role as Bishop of Arundel and Brighton. Father Michael Hill, who abused children, was convicted and jailed for five years for these offences.

It emerged that after being advised in 1985 that Hill posed a threat to children, the Cardinal still appointed him chaplain at Gatwick. Later it was revealed another priest, Father Christopher Maxwell-Stewart, was rehoused in the Nineties beside a school in Kent after being accused of abuse at his parish.

The Archbishop has apologised profusely for being what he called naive, stupid and misguided in the case of Hill but that has still not satisfied critics, including the BBC and some national newspapers.

Even though the Catholic Church called in no less an authority than Lord Nolan to lay down guidelines for dealing with child abuse, the problem will not go away.

By appearing hesitant and even confused, the Archbishop has given the impression there is still something to hide. Bishop Kieran Conry, his successor as Bishop of Arundel and Brighton, did not help in a seasonal message in The Argus last week. Given a page to say whatever he wanted, he referred only briefly to child abuse when he should have confronted the issue.

Anyone who has met the Archbishop knows he is a good and holy man. But that is not enough to lead the Roman Catholic Church in a world which is very different from the one when he first became a bishop 25 years ago. He needs not just to be devout but also to have some savvy, a quality conspicuously lacking in his pronouncements on child abuse so far.

He is right not to resign because of one mistake made for the best of reasons 20 years ago. He is a good Catholic and feels accountable only to Rome - not his critics.

But the Archbishop has to make sure there are no more active child abusers among his clergy. The number of Catholic priests guilty of these offences is tiny compared with the population as a whole but their crime seems greater because of the trust placed in them.

Instead of retreating from public life, an understandable reaction in the face of criticism, he should be taking both a spiritual and a moral lead on many of the issues of the day. In doing so, he would make a more favourable impression than either his remote predecessor, Basil Hume, or the wild and woolly Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, a man inclined to burble for Britain.

But the signs are not good. The Church, after years of dominance, is in retreat, its inflexible teachings increasingly as odds with a relaxed and more secular society. The Archbishop, already an old man, does not seem to be in touch with the nation.

The image of the Church is not helped by pictures of the Pope, an ancient and ailing figure incapable of understanding or accepting change. It is hard to see how Catholicism can prosper while he remains its leader, under a system that does not allow graceful and timely departure.

Many people who have long left the church used to say: "Once a Catholic, always a Catholic." I do not hear that said so often now. When the current furore over sex scandals has blown itself out, the Archbishop should look at urgent and essential modernisation of the church to halt its decline - but there is little sign he has the will or the drive to do so.